May 11, 2015

We Didn't Start the Fire

We sat behind a family at the Billy Joel concert. Mom, dad, older sister, her husband, younger sister, her bestie, son, girlfriend. The girls, at least, had clearly grown up listening to their parents' Billy Joel albums, because they kept getting each other's attention and doing dance moves choreographed sometime between size 6x and the juniors section.

I loved watching them. Also, they were almost the youngest people there. Beloved and I, at 41, were bringing down the average age of the crowd in our section all by ourselves, and these glorious children young adults were probably fifteen years younger than we are.

I sat (because you sit when you're old and surrounded by other old people terrified to have another beer lest they have to once again roust the entire row to use the restroom) and thought how nice it must be to be Billy Joel and see your music unite so many generations. Or just to be someone capable of filling stadiums for decades. For DECADES. Props, Billy Joel.

Then he sang a song I'd heard he said he wouldn't ever sing again because he kept forgetting the lyrics: "We Didn't Start the Fire." These are those lyrics:

We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire But when we are gone It will still burn on and on and on and on And on and on and on and on...

We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No we didn't light it But we tried to fight it

We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it But we tried to fight it

We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it But we tried to fight it

I watched the younger sister dance in front of me, and I remembered memorizing the lyrics to that song as a teenager. But now, it's us in Afghanistan instead of the Russians. And we still have homeless vets. And boy, terror on the airline went bigger than ever since this song was written. Race relations, um, yeah.

But now it's not me and my generation singing that song. It's my generation doing the stuff.

That twirling twentysomething in front of me is who should be singing the song.

I looked around at the Baby Boomers on either side of me and tried to decide whether to be depressed or hopeful. We didn't light it, but the kids didn't, either.

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We Didn't Start the Fire

We sat behind a family at the Billy Joel concert. Mom, dad, older sister, her husband, younger sister, her bestie, son, girlfriend. The girls, at least, had clearly grown up listening to their parents' Billy Joel albums, because they kept getting each other's attention and doing dance moves choreographed sometime between size 6x and the juniors section.

I loved watching them. Also, they were almost the youngest people there. Beloved and I, at 41, were bringing down the average age of the crowd in our section all by ourselves, and these glorious children young adults were probably fifteen years younger than we are.

I sat (because you sit when you're old and surrounded by other old people terrified to have another beer lest they have to once again roust the entire row to use the restroom) and thought how nice it must be to be Billy Joel and see your music unite so many generations. Or just to be someone capable of filling stadiums for decades. For DECADES. Props, Billy Joel.

Then he sang a song I'd heard he said he wouldn't ever sing again because he kept forgetting the lyrics: "We Didn't Start the Fire." These are those lyrics:

We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire But when we are gone It will still burn on and on and on and on And on and on and on and on...

We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No we didn't light it But we tried to fight it

We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it But we tried to fight it

We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it But we tried to fight it

I watched the younger sister dance in front of me, and I remembered memorizing the lyrics to that song as a teenager. But now, it's us in Afghanistan instead of the Russians. And we still have homeless vets. And boy, terror on the airline went bigger than ever since this song was written. Race relations, um, yeah.

But now it's not me and my generation singing that song. It's my generation doing the stuff.

That twirling twentysomething in front of me is who should be singing the song.

I looked around at the Baby Boomers on either side of me and tried to decide whether to be depressed or hopeful. We didn't light it, but the kids didn't, either.